Alright, folks, ready for a little controversy? On second thought, what I’m about to write shouldn’t be controversial. It should be a that’s-ridiculous-and-disgusting-and-offensive-to-good-fathers-and-functional-daughters-everywhere no-brainer.

So tonight, as I’m driving home from nearly exerting myself to death on my bike, I hear this situation on the radio: A father, right here in my humble town, is encouraging his 18-year-old daughter to be an “adult film starlet.” Yes. As in porn star. Here’s how this went down. Apparently this

douche

dad had his old college buddy—and thriving porn star friend—over to dinner. This friend sees the 18-year-old daughter and tells her father that she’s “smokin’ hot.” Not conventionally gorgeous like Jenna Jameson, he adds, but she could easily fit among the top 25 of today’s porn stars. He wanted to sign her right there on the spot. For $400,000 a year. And Daddy says? Hell yes!

Well, okay, I guess he didn’t say hell yes. He brought it up with his daughter, who was “taken aback” by the suggestion. Um, yeah! If my dad approached me after dinner with his raunchy-ass friend and said, “Hey, Kate—Bob thinks you’ve got the stuff”—a.k.a. T&A—“to be a hot porn star. Wanna give it a go? You’ve got my support.” I’d be like, WTF? My dad thinks I’m a ho.

And the kicker. Apparently the girl’s mother—who is still married to the father, mind you—knows nothing about any of this. She has no idea that her husband, who held their baby girl in his arms after she was born, is encouraging said baby girl to be everybody’s “baby girl.” Yes. That’ll be a fun conversation. “Hey, hon, how would you feel about Margaret being renamed Crystal and starring in Back Door Beauties XXIIIII?” If I were the wife, I’d be packing my bags and my daughter and getting the hell outta there!

Am I being completely close-minded here? Is this actually the act of a loving and supporting father who wants his daughter to be financially and sexually liberated? Or is this

pimp

guy just absolutely in-effing-sane? How would you react if you were the daughter or the wife in this situation? I’d love your opinions!

Oh… and as a fun little add-on, my husband just told me about a dad who SWORDED HIS SON for not moving out. Sworded. As in like, stabbed with a sword that he just happened to have hidden under the living room couch. Well, yeah. Isn’t that where everyone keeps their swords? The son’s okay. The dad’s effing nuts. What’s wrong with parents these days???

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Well the countdown has begun! In six days my immediate family, all 16 of us, will arrive at Walt Disney World - the happiest place on Earth! To say that we are excited would be an understatement. We booked the trip last November. For the last seven months we have been pricing dining plans (we decided against), scheduling character dining (a princess lunch and a lunch with the Little Einsteins), booking appointments at the Bippity-Boppity Boutique (Monday afternoon), watching videos of all the rides via YouTube, planning our packing, and most importantly watching the promotional DVD every single Sunday after lunch (I am not exaggerating, we have watched it about 50 times). This will be my children’s first trip. We told them that as soon as my son was out of diapers we would go. Well he is now three years old and has been diaper-free for about nine months. My daughter (five-years-old) cannot wait to ride Space Mountain. I do not ride roller coasters for fear of literally falling right out, but I’m sure she’ll have a great time with her dad! Check back next week as I breakdown each day. It’s sure to be eventful!!!

I try to pride myself in being a cool “hip” mom (wait, do they say “hip” anymore), however I am having a little bit of trouble with the new technology-age vernacular. I guess my background of being an English teacher runs deeper than I thought, because the new verbs are causing me a lot of trouble. Example number one - texting. Every time I hear a group of kids talk about “texting” my grammatically correct nose twitches. A text is a noun or an adjective. They should say, “I sent you a text message.” And what about “friending” on MySpace and Facebook? Really? To an unknowledgeable observer the comment, “She friended me,” sounds absolutely ridiculous!!! How about - She sent me a friend request? Oy! The ultimate in weird is “tweeting.” I don’t use Twitter, but the thought of telling someone that I just tweeted makes me laugh out loud - seriously!!! I suppose the gauntlet has now been thrown. Will I resist these crazy verbs or will I cave and join the crowd. Stay tuned!

In these current times of economic crisis I have a suggestion for moms and dads trying to come up with new toys for your kids. Go check your parents’ attics! Yesterday, my kids and I went to visit my mom and dad. Late in the afternoon I noticed that the kids were being very quiet upstairs. When I went up to check on them I was surprised at what I found. They had gotten into an old box of my brothers’ and my toys and found tons of things to play with! My daughter had gotten out My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and even Barbies. My son had discovered my brothers’ endless supplies of Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They were having a blast. The thing they were excited about was that these were the same toys they play with at home, just older versions. Sure enough, retro-toys are back in style. Thanks Mattel, Hasbro, and whoever else thought to bring back the toys from the 80s. Even though my daughter couldn’t understand why Barbie was wearing leg warmers (hey they were cool in 1986) and the lead paint was chipping off Optimus Prime, they had hours of fun.

Well, last night marked a big night at our home - it was my daughter’s last t-ball game. For those of you who have not been inducted into the t-ball club, let me give you the Cliffs Notes version. T-ball is played by 5 & 6 year olds. In our city, there are approximately ten players on each team. When we go to a game, there are two innings. Each player bats. They can swing as many times as they want, there are no outs. We do not keep score. When the last batter is up, the umpire calls, “Last batter,” and the kid playing “pitcher” stands at home plate and tags any of the kids who were on base. When it is over the kids have absolutely no idea what they have done or who has won. It is INSANE!

My husband and father are vehemently against it (due to their competitive natures) and began “unofficially” keeping score during the second game. Needless to say, I was not sorry that the season was rounding to an end. All day long my daughter has gone on and on about how sad she was that the season was going to be over and how excited she was about her big game. At about 5:00 I went to her room to get out her uniform. It was gone!!! I couldn’t find it anywhere!!! After fifteen minutes searching (with her pacing along behind me), I called my husband who was on a business trip in Miami. “Do you have any idea where her uniform is???” I shrieked into the phone. “Yes, it is in the trunk of your car,” he answered calmly. “But you drove my car to the AIRPORT!” I screamed (the airport is three hours away). “Hmmmm,” was his reply.

So I pasted on a fake toothy grin and called my daughter to the room. I asked her if she’d like to go eat pizza and go swimming tonight. “What about my game?” she replied suspiciously. “Um, your-uniform-is-in-the-car-at-the-airport-so-you-aren’t-going-to-play,” I rattled off as quickly as possible. “Thank goodness,” she answered, “I am so tired of pretending to have fun!” Then she skipped out of the room.

So last week we had a rite of passage in our home. My five-year-old lost her first tooth. It was a little bit traumatic due to the fact that she swallowed it, but I convinced her to write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened and everything would be fine. That evening after she went to bed I snuck in her room, grabbed the letter, and left her a dollar. The next morning at church some of our friends heard her talking about getting a dollar. I swelled with pride, well, until I noticed the posse circling around me. All of a sudden the tooth fairy patrol began to cross examine me.

Apparently two of our friends gave their daughters twenty dollars for the first tooth and one friend gave her son forty dollars. Forty dollars!!! That is insane. Why in the world would anyone give a five-year-old forty dollars for a tooth? So I started to feel guilty. I began to poll all of my friends and apparently the average amount of money a child received from the tooth fairy was ten dollars. I don’t know about you, but ten dollars is a lot more precious in our household these days.

Nevertheless, two weeks later when my daughter lost her second tooth (thankfully we rescued it from the sink before it went down the drain), the tooth fairy left a more generous gift of five dollars. Suffice it to say I was a bit chagrined when my daughter yelled for me to come to her room. Upon seeing her prize she sighed wistfully and said, “I wish the tooth fairy would quit leaving me these useless tickets. I would much rather have some crayons or bubble gum!” From the mouth of babes…

Now, clearly I love the beauty and fashion industry. I delight in it. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in high school, I was the girl who took pride in arriving to class with her hair in a messy wet bun, wearing only lip balm and a snug t-shirt with drawstring pants. Vans were my footwear staple. I considered myself independent, a little bohemian, and I looked scornfully at the girls with smoky eyes and straightened hair. There was also, I’ll admit, a little bit of envy. In their fashion, their stilettos that clacked across the beige tiled hallways, those girls had what I didn’t: sex appeal.

Last night, I watched The Devil Wears Prada with my 12-year-old stepdaughter. She is uncommonly beautiful, with no trace of the awkwardness I suffered at her age. She is smart, perceptive, and a budding fashionista. (The night before, she’d killed thirty minutes by trying on half a dozen pairs of my shoes, then texting all her friends back in Seattle about her newfound love for high-heeled boots.) But as we watched Prada, she’d declare, “Ugh! I have such a big butt!” or “Look at all this baby-flab over my hips! You don’t have any of that!” or “I’m confused. How come my thighs touch when I’m standing up? That’s not right, is it?”